1 66 WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



THE springs have commenced, and the gray and lower- 

 ing atmosphere which the influence of these tides 

 occasion has set in. Although the darkness would 

 intimate a change, the fresh breeze and sky appearances 

 portend, as they tell me, good weather. 



We are bound for the bay to lay down spillets ; and 

 during the tedious interval which of necessity occurs 

 before they can be lifted, we shall kill coal-fish, shoot 

 sea-gulls, smoke cigars, and, no doubt, have a further 

 detail of atrocities from the Colonel, which would put 

 the Newgate Calendar to the blush. 



The mainsail is chalk-up, the hooker has slipped 

 her cables, and hangs by a single end to the pier, and 

 we are waiting for a row-boat, which four sturdy peasants 

 propel with might and main from the opposite shore. 

 There is a man in the stern sheets who engrosses the 

 undivided attention of my cousin and his followers. 

 The boat approaches, and " Blessed iMary ! can it be ? " 

 there sit Hennessey and the Colonel's portmanteau ! 

 The embassy has succeeded, the bustle of the boatmen 

 is commensurate to the importance of the freight, and 

 they give way in the full consciousness that they carry 

 " Caesar and his saddle-bags." 



Mr. Burke has made the amende honorable ; my 

 cousin looks two inches taller, and hints slyly that feudal 

 power in Ballycroy is not yet extinct ; and well he may, 

 for the Colonel's chattels are uninjured no rude hand 

 has undone a buckle not a shirt is wanting, or even the 

 fold of a neck-cloth disarranged. There is a mysterious 



